During the 14-year reign of Easy Money, which started in 2008 and ended in 2022, everything became possible, and there were no limits to asset prices and valuations because when money is free, price doesn’t matter.

By mid-2022, the whole show started coming to an end. For the whole year 2022, “only” 185 unicorns were created, about 0.7 per business day. In 2023 through March 9, only 5 unicorns were created, about 0.1 per business day (data via PitchBook):

The total number of US-based unicorns that are still active climbed to 704 unicorns by March 2023, representing a mind-boggling aggregate valuation of $2.36 trillion, with a T.

The end of Easy Money ended many miracles and after the raucous party is now bringing them back to some sort of reality. This reality may be tough for a sector that has gotten hooked on an endless flow of money that made unicorns a paragon of this era.

What Are We Going to Do with All these Unicorns? | Wolf Street